Five Tips to Stay Calm in Stressful Situations and Relax in an Instant!

Day in and day out, we are exposed to triggers that often make us feel out of control. Thus, it is not only important but essential to learn of tools that can help you stay calm. Our bodies have been designed in a way to engage or disengage with the stressor. Basically, everything we do when we are feeling stressed takes away the calmness.

When you train your body and mind to stay calm, you learn an important life and psychological skill. Tips are not the permanent solution to your stress level, but they are definitely the first thing to try out when feeling triggered.

Staying calm is not just a thing for monks for everyone in general. (Image via Unsplash/ Processingly)

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Five Tips to Stay Calm in The Face of Stressors

While there are complex techniques and tools to stay calm, or ones that can bring about long-term stillness in your life, sometimes we just need something short-term and quick. Here are some tips to stay calm and feel in control of the situation:

1. Focus on your body with grounding

Grounding is one of the quickest and easiest tip to stay calm and collected. (Image via Pexels/ Pixabay)

If you are feeling stressed, the first thing you can try out is to ground yourself in the present. Generally, anxiety and stress take us from the present moment and make us worry to the core.

Grounding techniques take only a few seconds or minutes. Just placing your feet on the ground or drinking water slowly to engage your senses is also a form of grounding and a way to stay calm.

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2. Managing self-talk and being practical

The way you think and talk in the moment is crucial to helping you out. (Image via Freepik/ senivpetro)

According to a school of therapy known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the root of most our mental health concerns are our irrational thoughts. These constantly influence how you feel, and at the end of the day, they reflect on how you behave.

It is a vicious cycle, and the way you talk is heavily influenced by this. To take control of the moment and for staying calm in stressful situations, change how you talk. For instance, say "I will be able to move past this" instead of "This is a complete disaster." Sometimes, it is helpful to be practical about the situation rather than emotional.

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3. Time-out

When was the last time you took a time-out? (Image via Unsplash/ Lukas Blazek)

Even adults need time-out or a break here and there. If you think the situation or experience is much more triggering or overwhelming than anticipated, take a time-out.

Maybe go out for a walk or distance yourself from the situation. Yes, this is possible even when your boss is shouting at you. To protect yourself and stay calm, you need to step out.

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4. Visualization exercises

Keep something specific while visualizing and go in the depths of your imagination. (Image via Vecteezy/ Abdul Bayzid)

Visualization techniques can be incredible in making you feel positive in the moment.

Our brain is naturally primed towards negative information. Most of the times, negative feels to be more factual than positive. However, when you visualize feeling calmer, it can have an instant calming effect on your body.

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5. Responding and thinking about your opinion

Choosing to respond is an art. (Image via Freepik/ diana.grytsku)

One of the key ways to break away from the stress response cycle is to stay away from reacting. A lot of times, we react to situations instead of responding. This not only makes you even more agitated but can lead you to go all guns blazing on someone.

Try responding to people, situations, or even things. Try to take a few seconds, and think about how this situation has affected you and then choose to respond.

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Remaining calm in stressful situation takes practice and patience. The list of tips is not limited to these five. In fact, you can try to build your own tool-kit to feel calmer. Remember that while the stress response may pass on its own, you can take control beforehand and manage to stay calm.

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Janvi Kapur is a counselor with a master's degree in applied psychology with a specialization in clinical psychology.

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